A Vaishali family claimed that their 10-year-old was ‘hypnotised’ by a biker in a kidnapping attempt

The family of Archie Yadav, who had gone missing from her home and was later found in Kangra in HP, had also claimed that she had been ‘hypnotised’ by two women. However, the police disagreed with the theory.(Sakib Ali/HT File Photo)

A family from Vaishali has claimed that their 10-year-old child was ‘hypnotised’ by an unidentified biker in an abduction attempt. The allegations come just a fortnight after the family of 12-year-old Archie Yadav, who had gone missing from her Indirapuram house and was later found in Kangra, claimed she had been ‘hypnotised’ and abducted by two women.

In the Vaishali case, the boy’s father Jagdish Bisht said his son was returning from his coaching class around 5.30pm on Tuesday when an unidentified biker came up to him.

“My son told me that after he looked at the biker, he turned back and walked nearly 2-3 km from Vaishali’s Sector 4 to Sector 2 under some kind of influence and the biker followed him on his bike. He had probably hypnotised my son. The child kept on walking till he regained consciousness and immediately sought help from locals in the market. However, they did not help him call home,” Bisht said.

“He then went to a local shop and sought help to call us. After the call, we reached there and brought him back around 7.15pm. We also called up police, who sent a PCR van around 11pm but at that time my son was asleep and I did not disturb him as his exams are underway. We will approach the police on Wednesday evening and file a complaint about the incident,” he added.

PK Tripathi, station house officer, Indirapuram, said, “Whenever the boy’s family approaches us with a complaint, I will get the incident inquired into at the earliest.”

For now, Bisht, who is also the president of Vaishali Central Park Lane RWA in Sector 4, has decided to secure the area and has ordered 12 CCTV cameras and two guards on duty during the day in the locality.

“Apart from this, we have also instructed that no biker will be allowed inside with a face mask or a helmet. The identity of any biker entering the locality should be apparent,” he added.

In the case of Archie Yadav, she had gone missing from her Shakti Khand house on February 13 and found a day later in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. She was seen running away from her house in CCTV footage from the neighbourhood. Her family claimed she was ‘hypnotised’ by two unidentified women, but the police claimed she had told them that she left on her own as she could not complete her school assignments. She was later handed over to her family.